A&M University-San Antonio’s military culture training helps vets feel at home in school

A&M University-San Antonio’s military culture training helps vets feel at home in school

by: Alex Horton | .

Stars and Stripes | .

published: September 20, 2016

SAN ANTONIO — Navy corpsman Jose Ramirez received a simple order: Set up a field hospital for wounded Marines and insurgents before the second battle of Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004.

He prepped patient areas in a commandeered building and staged medical supplies for the inevitable flow of injured Marines. That night he saw his first amputated leg, but his training gave him a good measure of confidence in his abilities. The man the Marines called “Doc” was ready. He knew exactly what to do.

Math class, however, was another story.

“I was nervous. I was uncertain where it was going to take me. I couldn’t see it all coming together,” Ramirez said of his first semester at San Antonio College in 2013, nine years after he left one of the world’s most storied battlefields of the past half-century. A degree seemed far off and murky, and Ramirez needed to relearn how to study and make his own schedule.